“There are a number of hurdles that the government will have to jump through before Snowden will ever end up in a U.S. courtroom,” Stephen I. Vladeck, an associate dean at American University’s Washington College of Law, told the Post.

Specifically, there are certain quirks to the extradition treaty between the U.S. and Hong Kong.

The U.S-Hong Kong treaty has an unusual exception in that Hong Kong authorities can refuse the extradition of a suspect “if they believe it should be denied from a defense or foreign policy perspective," international extradition lawyer Douglas McNabb told the Post.

“The dirty little secret about extradition law is it’s really about 90 percent politics and only 10 percent law,” Vladeck said.